The Malatya-Elaziğ area is one of the most intensively studied regions in eastern Turkey, but archaeologically the general picture is still not very clear. Most of the archaeological excavations and surveys in the area were conducted as part of the Keban and Turkish lower Euphrates salvage projects within a very short period of time. Although the project results were published, still most of the original data is not available and few intensive field projects have since undertaken to fill the gaps between the previously studied areas. As the survey areas are now under water, there is no opportunity to re-survey the areas covered. Under these circumstances, it seems useful to re-analyse the available material in conjunction with evidence provided by other disciplines like geography, geology and even biology up to an extent, aided by certain computer applications; predominantly GIS software but also certain computer programs used by other disciplines for specific analyses. This re-evaluation of the current evidence has made it possible to identify a settlement system that was formed of small clusters of sites, and it can also be suggested that the area was divided into three cultural zones during most of the Middle Bronze Age.

Sardis constituted a major urban centre during the early Byzantine period, an era marked by the gradual transformation of the city into a Christian metropolis. From the fourth to the sixth century AD, Sardis maintained an important commercial, industrial and administrative role that sustained high-quality monumental construction. Yet, the major architectural types that emerged during this crucial period in the centre of the early Christian city are largely unknown to us. The unexcavated remains of the monument known as ‘Building D’ offer the best opportunity to shed light on this enigmatic aspect of the history of the city. Indeed, these remains display a late fourth century reused inscription as well as construction details typical of the early Byzantine period. They also lie in what must have been a central area of the city during this time. At first sight, this building seems hopelessly dilapidated and largely inaccessible. Still, the current paper demonstrates that a closer examination of the fabric of Building D reveals invaluable clues for its original form and function. This new exploration of the building includes the graphic recording, careful analysis and interpretation of the remains, thus providing the evidence required for the first substantiated reconstruction of a major part of the monument. The exploration reveals the articulation and structure of the primary load-bearing elements, as well as the form of the enormous vaulted canopy that covered one of the most imposing and towering spaces of early Byzantine Sardis. The article uses this reconstruction as a basis for the identification of those architectural features that help to interpret the function of the building, its role in the development of late antique Sardis as well as its position in the evolution of early Byzantine architecture in western Asia Minor.

The appearance of Aegean-style IIIC pottery at Tarsus occured at a time of unrest and of movement of peoples resulting in part from the collapse of the Mycenaean palaces on the Greek mainland. Mycenaean Late Helladic IIIB pottery exports from mainland Greece to Cyprus and the Levant disappeared and were gradually replaced by local imitations. Eventually Aegean-style IIIC pottery appeared in the East Aegean-West Anatolian Interface, in Cyprus and at various sites on the southern coast of Turkey and in the Levant. It was not exported from the Greek mainland, but seems to have been locally made at each site. A first series of neutron activation analysis (NAA) was carried out on pottery from Tarsus to determine how much of the Aegean-style 12th-century BC pottery was locally produced, how much was imported and, if imported, from whence it came. The favourable results of this first analysis gave rise to a second NAA of more Aegean-style pottery from Tarsus, bringing the total number of pieces analysed to 67. It has confirmed the local production of the pottery; the chemical group TarA is the dominant local group at Tarsus, comprising a third of the samples. A smaller group, TarB, may also be local. The analysis revealed a large number of Aegean-style IIIC imports from Cyprus from several different sites; these make up a quarter of the samples. There are a few imports from other areas, including the East Aegean-West Anatolian Interface. Influence from both Cyprus and the Interface can also be seen at Tarsus in the use of some shapes and motifs. A comparison with 12th-century BC imports identified by NAA at the site of Tell Kazel (ancient Simyra) in Syria directly east of Cyprus shows imports from the same two areas.

This article uses spatial autocorrelation analysis in order to explore the social organisation of crop and herd management at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in south-central Turkey. Evidence for spatial clustering across the settlement is sought at different scales (house, neighbourhood, radial wedge, sector, sub-mound) in the different periods of occupation from Early to Late. The data used are sheep carbon and nitrogen isotopes, densities of weed species in archaeobotanical assemblages and the densities of weed species in sheep dung. The results are interpreted in relation to existing work both on crop and herd management and consumption at Çatalhöyük and on the social organisation of the settlement. Complex nested and cross-cutting social groupings shared many aspects of production and consumption activities across the site resulting in limited spatial clustering of values. The impacts of taphonomic factors on these results are considered. Especially by the Late period of occupation at Çatalhöyük, there is some evidence of distinct labour and consumption organisation linked to houses and house groupings.

In classical archaeology the spatial aspects of deathscapes and associated funerary phenomena are often taken at face value. Beginning from a relational understanding of space, this article examines the necropoleis of middle Hellenistic to late Roman Sagalassos (second century BC to fifth century AD) within the wider context of the city. To facilitate this methodologically, four spatial aspects are investigated for the Hellenistic, Roman Imperial and late Roman periods: the relations between the spaces of the living and dead, landscaping practices, visibility and accessibility. These four aspects offer insight into the funerary and non-funerary relations from which the necropoleis emerged, developed, expanded and eventually disappeared. A whole range of funerary phenomena are included, ranging from cinerary urns, rectangular and vase-shaped ostothekai, aediculae, naiskoi, arcosolia and sarcophagi to larger sepulchral structures like temple tombs. In addition to being compared with urban developments, the observed patterns are further evaluated within the larger framework of Asia Minor. Ultimately, the enunciated archaeological patterns facilitate multicausal answers to where the Sagalassians placed their dead, if and how this changed and became more varied, and why these developments occurred in particular (re)configurations of time-space.

The Roman mansio or way station and Byzantine bishopric of Parnassos in Cappadocia is chiefly known through inscriptions and bishops’ lists and identified with the small Turkish village of Parlasan/Değirmenyolu. It came as a surprise when a salvage excavation unearthed a large building with sumptuous floor mosaics beyond the outskirts of the village. Previous excavation reports misrepresented the building as a basilica church, when it was in fact an apsed hall and may be identified as the reception unit of an elite residence, as this article shows. A large central room had an elevated apse where the landlord would have sat. An animal mosaic in front of the apse is comparable to similar compositions in fourth-to-sixth-century urban palaces but avoids any reference to pagan mythology and employs stylistic features that are otherwise known from church floors. A mosaic inscription identifies the reception unit as belonging to the bishop and thus as part of the episcopal palace. This discovery is augmented by the find of a Late Roman sarcophagus and three Early Christian gravestones. Later, after the original palace was mostly destroyed, the building complex underwent a second, utilitarian phase that appears to date from the Invasion Period, when the Arabs raided central Anatolia from the seventh to ninth centuries.